New HSC English as an Additional Language or Dialect syllabus from 2027: what's changed

HSC English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) has a new syllabus. The 2027 HSC is the first exam on it, and the 2026 HSC is the last on the 2017 syllabus. Everything here is based on NESA's published pages and notices (HSC examinations page last checked 7 October 2026), summarised in our own words.

Timeline

What changed compared with the 2017 course

Year 12 EAL/D has four focus areas: Texts and human experiences, Language, identity and culture, Close study of text and Writing. The 2017 modules map onto them one to one:

The 2027 to 2030 prescribed texts

EAL/D students study three types of prescribed text across the course: one prose fiction text, one poetry text and one drama, film, media or nonfiction text. Poetry is now a required type. The texts you study for Writing do not count towards that pattern. NESA's EAL/D lists are separate from the Advanced and Standard lists, although several titles are shared. Set poems, stories and essays are in brackets.

Texts and human experiences

• Favel Parrett, Past the Shallows (prose fiction).
• Ellen van Neerven (ed), Flock: First Nations Stories Then and Now (prose fiction; Each City, Honey, Galah, River Story, Dreamers, Forbidden Fruit).
• Robert Gray, Coast Road: Selected Poems (poetry; Journey, the North Coast; The Meatworks; To the Master, Dogen Zenji; Late Ferry; Flames and Dangling Wire; Byron Bay: Winter; Philip Hodgins (1959-1995)).
• Oodgeroo Noonuccal, My People (poetry; Wiley, 2020; Corroboree, Ballad of Totems, No More Boomerang, Son of Mine, We Are Going, The Past, Reed Flute Cave).
• Ian Darling, Stories of Me (media, 2012).
• Tim Winton, The Boy Behind the Curtain (nonfiction; Penguin, 2017; six set essays).

Language, identity and culture

• Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake and Tara June Winch, Swallow the Air (prose fiction).
• Raymond Antrobus, The Perseverance (poetry; Echo, Jamaican British, Ode to My Hair, Dear Hearing World, The Ghost of Laura Bridgman Warns Helen Keller About Fame, Dr Marigold Reevaluated, To Sweeten Bitter).
• Langston Hughes, The Collected Poems (poetry; Vintage Classics, 1995; The Negro Speaks of Rivers, Mother to Son, I, Too, The Weary Blues, Madam and the Phone Bill, Lincoln Theatre, Theme for English B).
• Michelle Law, Miss Peony (drama) and Alice Pung, Unpolished Gem (nonfiction).

Close study of text

• Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These and Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (prose fiction).
• Robert Frost, The Collected Poems (poetry; seven set poems including The Road Not Taken and Mending Wall) and Judith Wright, Collected Poems (poetry; seven set poems including Northern River and Magpies).
• Jane Harrison, Rainbow's End (drama) and Denis Villeneuve, Arrival (film, 2016).

The Advanced and Standard lists are in our guide to the 2027 to 2030 prescribed texts.

The exam and assessment

HSC exam. NESA's HSC examinations page sets out two written papers worth 100 marks. Under the 2017 specification the exam was 85 marks of written papers plus a 15-mark Listening Paper. There is no Listening Paper from 2027.

• Paper 1: Texts and human experiences (40 marks, 1 hour 30 minutes plus 10 minutes reading). Section I (20 marks) has 4 to 6 short-answer questions. Section II (20 marks) is one extended response on your prescribed text.
• Paper 2 (60 marks, 2 hours plus 5 minutes reading). Language, identity and culture (20 marks), Close study of text (20 marks) and Writing (20 marks). The Writing question asks for an imaginative, discursive or persuasive response.

School-based assessment. The two components are weighted equally: knowledge and understanding of course content (50%) and skills in responding to texts and communicating ideas appropriate to purpose, audience and context across modes (50%). NESA's guidance is that individual tasks carry between 10% and 40%.

Take-home limit. From Term 4 2026 each HSC course may have at most one take-home task worth at most 15% of the school-based mark. English EAL/D is not on NESA's exempt list. Marks must reflect your own work, not generative AI.

What to do now

If you sit the 2026 HSC. Nothing changes. Keep preparing for the 2017 exam, including the Listening Paper.

If you sit the 2027 HSC.

1. Find out which prescribed text you will study in each focus area, and check it against the lists above.
2. Shift listening practice into your reading and writing routine: there is no separate Listening Paper to prepare for.
3. Practise full-length written responses under timed conditions in both papers, using the NESA sample materials.
4. Expect more supervised assessment because of the take-home limit.

See also English Standard: what's changed and English Advanced: what's changed.

Official sources

Use the NSW Curriculum overview, school-based assessment and HSC examinations pages under sources, plus NESA notice 31/24. NESA says some dates are indicative and subject to change.